It all started with The Overland Track in Tasmania in January 2024, putting my new Sony A7CR and a 40mm F2.5 G prime lens to the test through 8 days of wilderness hiking.

Now having started 2025 with Routeburn Track and more in New Zealand, I can reflect on what I love about using the camera and its lenses and what I don’t love, and what a “more perfect” version of it might be, as it’s not a perfect camera of course.

Pro — Compact But Packing 61 Megapixels

Without a doubt, my favourite aspect of the Sony A7CR is the combination of the body’s compact rangerfinder style design and its extremely high resolution sensor of 61 megapixels. Nothing quite like it seems to exist on the market at this point in time. The backside illuminated sensor is fairly common these days, but it helps with noise levels despite the smaller photo sites on the sensor.

The body is slightly smaller than the APS-C Fujifilm X-Pro3 I used to own, but the sharpness and resolution of the raw files is out of this world compared to the 26mp X-Trans which I had to use Enhance in Lightroom just to get rid of the “worm” artefacts.

With the A7CR, I can make a high resolution landscape photo capable of large printing with just a single exposure. When pairing it with Lightroom’s machine learning Enhance & Denoise processing, you can squeeze an extra few percent of quality out of the already huge raw files and refine the pixel detail, especially for foliage and natural textures.

See my lens reviews below for 100% crops:

Pro — Tilty Swivelly Screen Thing

The flip out monitor can be turned inwards against the body to hide it, while at the same time it can be swivelled around on multiple axis for many different angles of view. The body can essentially be in any orientation and you should be able to rotate into view where you are standing.

If you’re down low, you can flip the screen out and angle it up. If the camera is in vertical orientation (as pictured), you can swing out the monitor and rotate it into view.

If you’re in front of the camera, you can swing the monitor out 180 degrees and flip it over.

Pro — 7-Stop IBIS (In-Body Image Stabilisation)

The image stabilisation is lens-independent in the Sony A7CR, so none of your lenses need to have stabilisation themselves. It’s also very impressive. I’ve been able to hand hold shots as slow at 1/4th of a second and when you zoom into the raw files, it’s pixel sharp. Typically, if I’m doing this, I will fire off a few shots just to be safe that one of them has no motion blur. Sometimes your hand’s chaotic jittery movement may coincide with the sensor moving some unexpected direction. Coffee isn’t your friend, but IBIS is.

At the very least, this makes it easy to skip the tripod in certain situations where you don’t have much time, or if you are on a windy day with a tripod, the IBIS should handle any particular buffeting the camera takes during the actual exposure.

Extremely useful for trekking and windy environments.

Pro — Weather Resistant…ish.

Please do not dowse your A7CR in water, but I’ve had it under mild misty rain in New Zealand and it hasn’t missed a beat. I’m no backcountry landscape photographer heading out every weekend for epic adventures, so take that with a grain of salt. Keep it dry when you can, but don’t be afraid of some droplets of rain falling on it.

Weather resistant lenses will make this a more resistant combo.

The photo below was shot in misty rain conditions on Routeburn Track in New Zealand without issue whilst the camera was covered in droplets of water.

Six photo vertical panoramic stich using the Sony A7CR and Sigma 90mm F2.8 DG DN Contemporary lens. Framed in Like A Frame for iOS.

Pro — Great Auto-Focus

While I’m not a big user of the demanding aspects of an autofocus system for activities like sports, the A7CR has always been able to focus very accurately and quickly, whether it’s set to a spot focus mode or wide area with subject/face detection.

The subject detection is super accurate and finds the eyes or face of a subject even when they’re quite small in the frame.

Pro — The EVF is enough

I’ve read a number of replies and comments here and there about the EVF being unusable. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s not a high resolution EVF like the best Sony A7 models, but it’s never stopped me from ever achieving what I want. It has a few settings for high refresh rate and I can easily see 100% zoom on captured raw files to see if what I’ve captured is sharp.

On top of that, I also wear glasses and I have no issues with it the small EVF window.

Three photo horizontal panoramic stich using the Sony A7CR and Sigma 90mm F2.8 DG DN Contemporary lens. Framed in Like A Frame for iOS.

Con — No Dual SD Card Slot

This is less of an issue for me as a hobbyist, and especially as I’ve never had an SD card fail on me, it’s unlikely with careful use and safe-keeping of my camera on a trip that I’m not going to lose any data, but you never know what might happen.

The X-Pro3 had dual cart slots, so it’s a shame the A7CR doesn’t, though I can understand that it might be jam-packed already inside that full frame body, especially with the IBIS module.

Con — Ambiguous Exposure Dials

I have gotten somewhat used to the fact that for certain settings I have to use the unlabelled dials covering the camera’s right side, but the unlabelled dials and PASM setting are less efficient and more fumble prone than dedicated exposure triangle dials as found on Fujifilm and Leica cameras.

Dedicated Shutter Speed and ISO dials would be preferrable to have as it allows you to very quickly change these settings on a whim. Coupled with certain lenses having an aperture ring, this would give you the Fujifilm style tactile way of operating.

Using the unlabelled knobs and dials for shutter speed and aperture has been annoying to remember which does which.

Con — Closing The Shutter For Lens Swapping

When you detach a lens, the shutter stays open, allowing dust/environmental stuff to collect on the sensor. Not the best thing.

There’s a setting which allows you to tell the camera to close the shutter when you turn off the camera with a short delay before it does. This is great, because it allows you to change lenses without the sensor exposed, but it could also add a delay to turning the camera on, so I usually leave this setting turned off.

I turn my camera on and off a lot when out and about to save power, but I would rather have the ability to tell the camera “I’m about to change the less, please close the shutter for a moment!”

I don’t think this is possible without having to go into the settings and change this option every time, then turning off the camera and waiting for the shutter to close.

I’ve also read that it’s better to leave this option turned off as the sensor is easy to clean but the shutter isn’t. Take that with a grain of salt.

Emily Peak above Lake MacKenzie, Routeburn Track, New Zealand. Sony A7CR on Sirui Traveler 5A Aluminium Tripod.

Shooting a panorama of The Valley of the Trolls on Routeburn Track in New Zealand.

Shooting a panorama of Somnus on the Routeburn Track in New Zealand.

Wish List — Sony 35mm F2.8 G Prime Lens

If Zeiss can make a 35mm F2.8 prime lens the size of the 24mm, 40mm, 50mm, then I would happily swap out my 35mm ZA for the equivalent Sony G prime lens in 35mm (whether F2.5 or F2.8, I don’t mind). Sony, please make a 35mm G with an aperture ring!

The G prime lenses are so lightweight and compact while retaining decent quality optics that can resolve on the 61mp A7CR sensor, but crucially they add an aperture ring which makes it that much easier to view and change the aperture setting without diving into those unlabelled dials on the camera body.

A Game Changing Camera

For me, the Sony A7CR is a game changing camera. Until now, the Leica M10R and Leica M11 were the only options for a very high resolution rangefinder-style landscape camera. I had been keeping an eye on the A7C for quite a while, but the 24 megapixel sensor offered not enough of an improvement over the X-Pro3 I already owned.

When the A7CR was released, it seemed like the case was now closed, and I’m very happy with the camera, despites its minor disadvantages like the single SD card slot and dials.

Whenever I zoom into one of the raw files in Lightroom, I’m blown away by the sheer amount of detail. It’s phenomenal.

If you don’t have a need for higher resolution EVF/monitor or dual SD cards, and want to create large prints for your work or achieve a high resolution with the rangefinder style eye placement design, give this camera a shot.

I’m looking forward to creating more work in 2025 on it with my three primes.